In a Texas military town, three teenage girls confront the dark corners of adolescence at the end of a fever dream summer.
The premise of Cusp alone got me very interested and it’s definitely one of my favorites from the Sundance Film Festival. Cusp isn’t your traditional documentary it’s more of taking a look at the daily lives of a group of teenage girls and intimate look of how they act and feel. Where the film does get into controversial territory is when the girls get harassed, some people are going to look at it as exploitation but I feel it’s quite effective. I feel like the film is pointing out despite what the media is wanting to tell you how feminism is everywhere and is stronger than ever as well as consent there are still some areas in America where feminism and consent haven’t spread which is unfortunate. As far as filmmaking goes it’s quite fantastic, it’s very raw and is focused on the girls and their lives. I’ve said this before but one of my favorite types of filmmaking is seeing the daily life or lives of a certain person or group of people and this is no exception here. It’s very interesting and it can be hard to watch at times plus it most definitely won’t be for everyone. But if it sounds interesting to you I highly recommend giving this one a watch.
FLEE tells the extraordinary true story of a man, Amin, on the verge of marriage which compels him to reveal his hidden past for the first time.
Flee was definitely one of the most unique films of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, it’s a documentary that’s animated which is very different. The documentary itself is a true story about a refugee’s life with the threat of capture and death, the storytelling is just absolutely fantastic. It’s a fantastic blend of a documentary and animation that really created something very special, there’s very haunting imagery that is also at the same time very beautiful which shows how incredible the storytelling really is! Flee tells the story through the animation which actually makes Amin’s story more impactful and emotional, it’s truly a fantastic showcase of storytelling. It’s at the point where you feel you are with Amin as you are witnessing the trauma and pain he went through. Flee is most definitely a film to keep an eye out for, as soon as it releases I highly recommend giving it a watch!
The Sparks Brothers is a 2021 music documentary film directed by Edgar Wright about Ron and Russell Mael, the creators of the pop and rock band Sparks.
The Sparks Brothers definitely caught my attention when I saw that it’s directed by Edgar Wright, so of course I had to see this at Sundance. The Sparks Brothers is truly something special, I went into this documentary knowing next to nothing about the rock band Sparks and I walk out knowing so much about them. That in my opinion is when a documentary is very successful, with that said that’s not all. Edgar Wright puts in his style in the documentary such as using a ton of beautifully creative animation, black and white interviews that really add a lot to the documentary and he brings so much energy and humor into it as well. Edgar Wright really makes this his own while the documentary is still about Sparks, the only one flaw I would definitely say is that it did not need to be 2 hours and 15 minutes long, I get Edger Wright wanted to include almost everything but at times you do start to feel that it’s getting to be a little too long. Luckily it helps that the documentary is full of energy and does go by very quickly in several portions of the documentary. Overall The Sparks Brothers I can easily see being on several people’s favorite films of 2021 list. It has everything you want in a documentary. It’s informative, it has a very unique style to it and it’s just a blast of fun! I really hope this gets a release date soon because this is absolutely worth seeing!!
A look at the history of the long-running children’s TV show, “Sesame Street.”
Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street is a very straightforward documentary that gives a very strong history lesson about Sesame Street. I knew this one would definitely end up being one of my favorites going into Sundance, the documentary covers quite a lot of moments that fans of the show will most definitely remember. It also does cover how the show itself impacted and helped several children, in a lot ways the film follows the same footsteps as “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” where that documentary was a celebration of Fred Rogers, Street Gang is a celebration of Sesame Street! Plus it shows how a lot of the characters were created, as far as filmmaking the film itself is pretty clean. It’s well crafted, it has some very interesting interviews and the clips chosen all fit together quite well! I highly recommend watching this one once it releases!
8/10 B+
A coming-of-age psychological thriller that plays out the unsettling reality of a kid who holds his family captive in a hole in the ground.
John And The Hole sounds very interesting on paper but in execution so many things were incredibly lacking, outside of some decent filming and a atmosphere that was actually there (it just wasn’t used very well) this movie really does not have a whole lot going for it. The idea of a morbid coming of age film about a boy putting his entire family in a hole is an incredible idea with very lacking execution, the acting and writing are below average and really don’t give any of the actors or actresses anytime to fully go all out in their roles. The other major problem is how much of a discount Yogros Lanthimos film this feels like. It’s as if they were in the middle of watching a Lanthimos film and suddenly decided to do a bizarre idea but completely forgot how to make that bizarre idea compelling or interesting. Which is what John And The Hole is missing, with Lanthimos’s films they are well written bizarre ideas that you can get behind. With John And The Hole you just don’t get that, instead you get very basic characters with no personality, writing that becomes way too predictable and a final act that really felt rushed. Overall John And The Hole is a primary example of the idea of the movie being more interesting than the movie itself.
4/10 D+
On the last day on Earth, one woman goes on a journey through LA to make it to her last party before the world ends, running into an eclectic cast of characters along the way.
How It Ends was another disappointment for me at the festival, once again the idea of the movie sounded interesting but the execution….was just strange. Like I appreciate what the movie was trying to do but tonally it was all over the place. The best way I could describe How it Ends is that it feels like a bubble gum commercial for what feels like goes on for 2 hours even though the movie itself is 1 hour and 33 minutes. I will say the acting is particularly decent Olivia Wilde being the standout, a lot of the cameos from various celebrities just didn’t hit for me. Sure some were actually quite okay but none of them really did anything for me, lastly I still feel Zoe Lister-Jones has a lot of promise as director I just wish she could go back to her roots when she did Band Aid. Writing wise the humor is going to be a hit or miss, the few character moments that are in the movie I thought were okay. I can definitely see How It Ends getting a decent sized fanbase so when it does release, I do recommend checking it out solely to see if you like it or not. Just don’t go in expecting anything great.
5/10 C
A modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
R#J is pretty much a Romeo & Juliet retelling in the modern age…that’s literally it, I liked the idea behind it which is why I gave it a chance at Sundance. The best thing I can say about it is there are some genuine interesting parts of filmmaking here and there that I quite liked. It’s just a huge shame that the dialogue is old speech used in a modern setting which really ruins the point of what the movie is trying to go for. It also doesn’t bring anything new to the table at all, the actors did the best they could with the script but it ultimately just doesn’t come together at all. I’m sure there might be people out there that will like this one I’m just not one of them.
Documentary filmmaker Rodney Ascher tackles this question “are we living in a simulation?” with testimony, philosophical evidence and scientific explanation in his for the answer.
I’m really glad I did not waste a time slot for this movie at Sundance because this was just terrible, I saw that it was coming out February 5th a week after Sundance so I saw little to no point of watching it at Sundance. The documentary is very underwhelming, the premise sounds interesting questioning if we live in a simulation. Unfortunately this documentary suffers from having no factual evidence and instead uses clips from YouTube videos or videos that have been debunked before online, clips from different movies and bizarre robot costume people (although that was pretty cool, I would imagine a lot of hard work was put into making those so props to that.) if the structure might have been better I could possibly see this working, but this really ends up being a poorly researched high school PowerPoint presentation. It’s also a mess, it just throws things at a wall hoping they stick with very little sticking. This might be interesting for some but for me you can find better conspiracy theories on Reddit.
Pioneering scuba diver Valerie Taylor, who has dedicated her life to exposing the myth surrounding our fear of sharks.
Playing With Sharks is a very straightforward documentary that gets right to the point rather quickly, to explain how Sharks are not the actual death machines the media likes to portray them as. What makes this documentary is Valerie Taylor’s passion of Sharks as well as her being a very interesting person, my brother and I use to watch a lot of Animal Planet when we were kids and Valerie Taylor heavily reminded me of just that. She shows how much research she’s done over the years about Sharks, she even helped film Jaws!! The Taylors were tasked to film the great white sequences which is quite impressive, there is a bunch of information here that any shark enthusiast would love. Plus it educates people who don’t know too much about Sharks as well! Overall very solid documentary that I recommend checking out when it comes out!!
7/10 B
In rural 19th-century France, a mysterious, possibly supernatural menace threatens a small village. John McBride, a pathologist, comes to town to investigate the danger — and exorcise some of his own demons in the process.
Eight For Silver was one of my most anticipated films at the Sundance Film Festival, unfortunately Eight For Silver really did not work for me. As I said in my first reaction the first 20 minutes are the best part about this film. They were very haunting and gave this chilling atmosphere that really takes you into the film’s world. The film also has a very decent atmosphere combined with the setting it results in some great scenes that are effective. What ultimately brings Eight For Silver down is two major things, the movie is 20 minutes too long combined with the pacing very inconsistent with a 1 hour and 53 minute running time it feels way too long. My other problem is the final act, it shows the Werewolves way too much which I get it that’s what movies tend to do. However I feel in this case it makes the werewolves less and less scary the more they are shown, which ultimately turns Eight For Silver into a very below average gothic horror movie with werewolves included. The acting and writing are fine enough but really don’t bring anything special to the table, they leave a little more to be desired. I’m sure gothic horror movie fans will love for Eight For Silver especially if you don’t mind a little bit of Werewolves in your movie. But I really don’t recommend this one.
Based on newly declassified files, Sam Pollard’s resonant film explores the US government’s surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Reviewing MLK/FBI is sort of tricky but I’ll give a shot! MLK/FBI is very eye opening documentary about how the FBI wanted to humiliate Martin Luther King Jr and ruin his life, this is a documentary that I’ve been waiting to see for a good while now (I’ve had it on my radar ever since it premiered at TIFF) and the wait was definitely worth it. Learning more about King and how the FBI desperately wanted to take him down because they feared him was truly some very disturbing stuff. The film itself really shows how the FBI can attempt/actually destroy your life and all it takes for them is to not like you or fear you. Martin Luther King Jr was a brilliant speaker and this documentary shows you more of that, there’s tons of goosebump moments that truly blow you away,m. The bravery and absolute genius of King is and always will be remarkable, the documentary itself is extremely well crafted, between a lot of interesting interviews to some footage that is quite interesting. The film really has a little bit of everything to make this a fantastic watch, it’s also very informative as well there’s somethings in this film I didn’t know about or knew of them I just didn’t know about it 100%. I also really like that Sam Pollard went all out with the topic, there’s so much information in this documentary that I can’t put it into words. All I know is that it’s definitely one of the highlights of 2021 so far, I truly hope this gets nominated for best documentary.
An account of the two women convicted of assassinating Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam. The film follows the women’s trials in an attempt to understand whether they are trained killers or simply pawns.
Assassins honestly does not have a whole lot going for it, it’s one of those documentaries where instead of watching it you can easily look at the Wikipedia page that will give you the same information. There’s a couple interviews that are at least interesting and are worth listening to, but otherwise the film itself is really nothing special. It’s well crafted and does go over and what led up to Kim Jong-nam’s assassination back in February of 2017….and that’s pretty much the documentary, it’s simple and will inform people who haven’t heard of the assassination quite well. Really not much else to say here, it’s a fine enough of documentary just not something that can be easily read on Wikipedia.
On the trail of a missing girl, an ex-cop comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity.
The Empty Man is a movie that’s been delayed numerous times over the years, the movie itself is nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be. It’s nowhere near as bad as horror movies like Devil’s Due or Fantasy Island. There are some actually okay concepts in the movie the problem is the execution isn’t all that great. The other major issue is how long the movie is, with a running time of 2 hours and 17 minutes it tends to get lost and completely misses it’s mark. Acting and writing wise it’s fine enough, there really isn’t anything really bad a lot of it is just not very interesting horror cliches combined with some interesting ideas that don’t work in the end. Overall there really isn’t much else to be said it’s a below average studio horror movie that’s already been forgotten about and it’s very easy to see why.
5/10 C
A documentary film about the Nickelodeon Network, telling the story of its humble origins deep into the SNICK years.
I didn’t even know this movie was being made until one of my friends told me about it! This came out in November and I watched it only yesterday (mostly due to being crowded with other movies) anyway the documentary itself is quite a nostalgic trip, the best way to describe this movie is a great history lesson of Nickelodeon. Sure it does leave out some stuff that could have honestly been put in there, but that’s mostly due to making sure it doesn’t over stay it’s welcome. I am really glad that it covered Doug and Clarissa Explains it All two shows that are highly underrated, other bits include All That, You can’t do that on television, Rugrats, Kenan & Kel and several other great shows that you would know right off the bat. It’s a great look back about how the shows were brought up and what the creators thought of them and what they were thinking. Definitely a great history lesson I recommend watching!
Raw and intimate, this documentary captures the struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
76 Days is a very disturbing watch it captures the struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan. To keep it short 76 Days is not an easy watch, it’s extremely devastating to see what both the patients and the medical professionals are going through. The first 10 minutes especially are quite disturbing and really set the tone for the rest of the film, the documentary is very straightforward and hits the point very well, it’s footage after footage of showing as I described before the struggles of both the patients and frontline medical professionals. The movie is very well crafted as well, I would definitely understand why one would not to watch this, the pandemic is still going on (at the time this was written) and there’s a lot of disturbing footage that will stick with you. 2020 has been a hard year for almost everyone so it’s completely understandable, but for those who are curious if you ever get the chance (hoping for a wide release date or VOD date soon) I recommend giving this one a watch.
Jerome Reviews... 